


Dandelion House

by cannibalinc



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Aftercare, Age Difference, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Circa Season 3, Coming Untouched, Daddy Kink, Dom/sub Undertones, Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Incest, Kind of dark, M/M, Memory Loss, Non-Consensual Drug Use, References to Knotting, Sheriff Stilinski Finds Out, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Vigilante Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 05:35:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12928593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cannibalinc/pseuds/cannibalinc
Summary: Stiles keeps coming home hurt. It's John's job to take care of him.





	Dandelion House

**Author's Note:**

> You say, did you really write Stilinskicest for Steter Week a week after steter week, and I say, what are you doing in my room

John has been having these dreams.

Sometimes he’s in the house, sometimes the hospital. Once, he was in the woods.

It has to do with an investigation, which is a common enough theme, as he’s dreamt about hundred of cases over the course of his career. But these dreams are colored with a sense of foreboding; urgency. It’s as though, before he stumbles through the threshold of his living room, the ER doors, or the dense trees of the Preserve, he already knows what he’s going to see.

It’s Stiles.

In the dream, it’s always dark, and he can only see the back of his son’s sheared head, the curve of his knobby back. Hunched on the ground, squatting over a dead body.

There’s blood everywhere, and when Stiles turns to him, John thinks he’s crying but he’s—

He’s laughing.

“I did it for you, Dad,” Not-Stiles says, knee-deep in water, and his voice sends a chill through John.

He wants to run, to draw his weapon, to demand answers, but every time, he’s frozen. And every time, Stiles walks up to him, dragging a baseball bat behind him, shoulder-deep in stranger’s blood. Touches John’s face, a soft, wet caress. Raises the bat.

He can’t look away.

“I love you, Dad.”

He can’t stop it.

“I have to protect you.”

Stiles swings.

x

John wakes up with a bad taste in his mouth, a headache and a certain feeling that something is very, very wrong.

He rolls over and shuts off his alarm. It’s still a little dark this early, and something about the oily shadows makes him queasy, still shaking off the disturbing images clouding his mind’s eye.

He opens his bureau and dresses, tucks in his shirt tails, ties his boots in a perfect knot. He’s always appreciated order.

As is John’s habit, he peeks into Stiles’ room as he walks by, wondering what funny and reason-defying pose his sleeping boy might be twisted into. It’s one of those charming and painful things he inherited from his mother. Claudia was more limbs than anything else, and she practically danced a jig in her sleep. John swears her tossing and kicking could tie boy scout knots in their sheets. There was a good chance he’d walk into work with a black eye, not that he ever minded.

But Stiles has, for once, managed to fall asleep on his actual bed, a good bit of him still sagging off the mattress. His open laptop is dangling in a dangerous situation on the edge, and John carefully closes it and sets it aside, switching off the desk lamp.  

He does a casual sweep of the dirty laundry, the endless coffee mugs and fast food wrappers. Kids are so gross. He considers pulling off Stiles’ shoes and fussing at him until he’s under the comforter properly, but a glance at his watch has him retreating before he runs out of time for breakfast.

There’s a baseball bat propped up behind Stiles’ door.

John pauses.

It’s a standard bat if he’s ever seen one, but it’s just like the one from his dream.

Not-Stiles doesn’t always have a bat. Sometimes it’s a knife, John’s own gun. Sometimes, Stiles’ hands transform into claws.

The handle is inscribed with Melissa McCall’s name. Maybe he’ll ask her about it later.

In any case, it’s just a bat.

John has always been a discerning man, assured in knowing others and most importantly, himself. Many assume that because of his straightforward, path-of-least-resistance ways, John hasn’t the patience and perception for mind games. That he is scrutinous, but too blunt a tool to bother with the finer nuances of manipulation as an art. They’re wrong, of course.

With a child like his own, John and Claudia both had to learn. Stiles required and still requires a form of bribery, blackmail or reverse psychology six ways to Sunday to coax him into the most basic aspects of human life. He knows that a good sixty percent of anything that comes out of Stiles’ mouth is deserving of suspicion. Maybe he’s not telling an outright lie, but he’s likely not telling the truth.

John thinks lately, it’s been rounding closer to eighty percent.

Stiles coming home late, not answering his phone, showing up in the middle of trouble wherever John goes—a homicide kind of trouble. It’s enough to make a father paranoid.

He thinks, he hopes, that this is the source of his troubled dreams.  

He knows he’s stressed.

There’s been an uptick in bizarre and fatal animal attacks around town. Beacon Hills is small, surrounded by government protected forest, but there’s never been a more severe case of mutilation by wildlife. He’s been working a lot. Not necessarily avoiding being home, but not trying all that hard to be there either. When he sees Stiles these days, he’s sleeping, hiding something or stumbling into crime scenes.

John does _not_ think his son is a criminal.

Well.

He smiles to himself, sipping his coffee.

At least not a serious one.

Not counting the kidnapping of Jackson Whittemore, Stiles’ record is a normal mix of behavioral issues and petty delinquency. Jackson is an asshole anyway.

God, he hopes it’s just drugs or, or vandalism; _normal_ things kids hide from their parents.

John finishes up his coffee. He looks into the empty mug and feels a sense of deja vu, like he was here, looking at this cup last night. He shakes himself, making a promise to start weaning off the hours. He’s getting old.

John dumps the cup in the sink and heads out for work.

x

Stiles goes missing at the lacrosse game, and John gets a noise complaint about the Argent house.

He thinks about ignoring it. God knows he’s got enough going on.

But something in his gut tells him to go, so he leaves the station, tells Tara to forward any calls about Stiles, and pulls into the Argent driveway.

Chris’ car is gone.

John knocks on the door, and it swings open on its hinges.

“Hello?” John calls. He walks into the house, peeking into dark corners, room to room, calling out.

He walks down the back hallway and spots a splash of blood on the wall. It trickles under a door jam.

John tries to steady his breathing, draws his gun.

“Hello?” He calls again. “Beacon Hills Sheriff Department!”

He slowly edges the door open, and steps down the narrow stairs leading to a basement. He hears a scuffle, a low voice.

John descends into semi-darkness carefully and finds—

It’s something out of a horror movie. His son is standing over Gerard Argent’s twitching body, pressing the end of a baseball bat into the man’s throat. He’s gargling blood.

“You will _never_ touch him,” he hears Stiles say. “Take a page out of Matt Daehler’s biography. He thought he could hurt him, and look where he is.”

He twists the bat, and Gerard wheezes.

John can’t look at the basement, not the strange electrical motor buzzing in the corner, not the chains hanging off the ceiling or, or the two teenagers shivering in the corner. He can only see Stiles, lifting the bat over his head, turning Gerard’s gasping face to the side with his shoe.

“Stiles,” he says, voice barely a whisper.

Stiles looks up, frozen.

“Dad?”

His son takes stock of himself and Gerard, eyes darting.

“Dad, Daddy,” he stutters. “It’s not what it looks like, okay?”

He drops the bat, and Argent laughs, rolling onto his side and coughing. Stiles pays him no mind.

“What does it look like, Stiles?” he asks weakly.

“I can explain, I can—it’ll make sense.”

“Stiles,” he begs. God he hopes there is an explanation, one that will make all of this go away. He sees his son’s face, the broken lip, the blood on the side of his head. Someone has hurt him.

“I promise,” Stiles says over and over. John watches him stumble over Argent’s body, not caring if he steps on him. “But first— _first_. Let’s go home, let’s just sit down. Okay? I’ll have this cleaned up—”

Have this cleaned up. He’s got help, he didn’t do this alone, John realizes. There’s someone else. Have this cleaned up. Like it’s nothing.

His hand creeps to his waist where he keeps his radio. Dispatch just a click away.

Stiles sees the movement and freezes, hands raised.

“Dad,” he says, and the soft pleading sound in his voice runs a little colder, harder. “It won’t do anything, Dad. You can call them, you can take me in and have all of this processed. But I swear to you, before they can book me, before they can even get here, this will all be gone. There will be. No. Proof.”

It’s just like his dream.

Stiles holds John’s jaw in both hands, eyes wide and teary.

“It was to protect you. I had to do it.”

Argent won’t stop laughing, and something twists on Stiles’ face, something irritated and desperate.

Before John can stop him, Stiles has his gun and shoots Argent twice in the back. One of the kids in corner yelps in shock, but after, there’s a ringing silence. The man isn’t laughing anymore.

He follows Stiles out of the house in a haze. The two kids stumble out behind them, and in the light of the foyer, John recognizes Erica Reyes and Vernon Boyd. He can see that they’ve been tied up a long time, but before he can say anything to them, they take off running into the yard and disappear in the dark.

“Wait!”

“Let them go, Dad.”

John turns to Stiles. He can see bruises around his son’s wrists and neck, his face marked up, and he wants so badly to know what the hell is going on. But he can only follow Stiles through the Argent house, quiet and dark. They get in his cruiser, and John grabs for the radio finally. He looks at Stiles. He gives the station the all clear.

Just some teenagers looking for trouble. He ran them off. No harm done.

At home, they watch one another in silence. Stiles makes a cup of coffee and hands it to John. They sit down across from one another, neither willing to start. John gulps his coffee.

“Gerard Argent. He hurt you? It was self defense?”

“He hurt a lot of people,” Stiles says carefully, then sneers. “He threatened you.”

“Why?”

This is where Stiles starts to really struggle. John knows his every tell.

There’s a pinched look in his shoulders, his mouth a stiff grin, like he’s trying to lighten the mood. He doesn’t know how sour and tired it makes him look. His foot taps thunderously on the rug.

John takes another sip.

“He was crazy, he thought—” Stiles stops.

There’s something serious going on, something that’s been happening for a while without him ever knowing it. He can read it from Stiles, as though he held the very pen that wrote his son’s DNA. You’d find John’s hand prints all over it if you looked with a microscope. They’re on the brink of it now, the towering wall that has built itself between them, and it’s so close to crumbling. He’d thought all along he was imagining it, but its shadow darkens them now. He can see it clearly.

“I want to keep you safe,” Stiles settles on saying eventually.

“I’m supposed to keep you safe, Stiles. I’m the parent.”

Stiles waves that off like it’s inconsequential. A minor detail.

“You’re mine,” he says to John like it explains everything, and John feels a dangerous swoop in his belly. “To protect. And Gerard threatened you. So. I handled it.”

“Matt Daehler,” John says suddenly, heart racing. “You mentioned him. He threatened me too.”

“He nearly bashed your head in!” Stiles yells, then repeats with conviction, “I handled it.”

We’ve been here before, John realizes with dawning horror. We’ve done this already.

He can see it now. Matt had knocked him out, but he woke up. He woke up and stumbled through the station, stepping over bodies and running his hands over the bullet riddled walls. He can see the dark woods outside, his son standing on the bank of the small creek that runs beside the station, holding Matt’s head under the water. He nearly chokes on his coffee.

How could he have forgotten? What happened after that? What is happening now?

“We’ve… we’ve...”

Stiles calm veneer collapses, and his reaches for John’s hand. Squeezes it.

“Just… just try to relax, Dad.”

He’s feeling woozy, and at some point his head has fallen back on the couch cushion. He sees Stiles looming over him, feels the warm rim of the coffee mug against his lips. A hand pinches his nose shut.

John struggles, but there’s something wrong with his body. It’s weak and slow.

“It’s over now, it’s okay,” Stiles says, but John thinks he’s rather trying to convince himself than John. He crowds himself onto John’s lap and holds him down. His mouth is flooded with bitter coffee and he’s forced to swallow, his flailing hands useless. The sound of shattering ceramic fills his head.

“You won’t remember, just sleep. Just sleep.”

Stiles hugs him, presses as close as he can, and John can hear his soft sobs. He comforts him on instinct, rubs his back and sides. Stiles kisses his face and neck with every pitiful _I’m sorry, I’m sorry_.

“I love you, Dad, I love you,” Stiles cries.

John sleeps.

x

He wakes up on the couch with a crick in his neck, Stiles slumped against him. The tv is on low, some auction show. John blinks, trying to remember how the hell—

A broken coffee mug rests on the table.

John swallows. Murky images of the evening twist him around until the mug swims before his eyes.

Something is very, very wrong.

x

He doesn’t remember everything.

But he doesn’t forget it all, either.

John doesn’t tell Stiles, preferring to let his son hold onto the comfort that everything is fine.

He hasn’t figured out just what he’s going to with the Argents, who no doubt have some sort of feeling about finding their dead family member in the basement, and he has no idea how to approach  the frankly terrifying dungeon set-up in their basement. But before he can brainstorm his options, the Argents have picked up and quietly left town.

France, he finds out from Stiles, casually. Who knows when they’ll return?

“It’s kind of a relief,” Stiles says, and John thinks no wonder.

He carefully reviews everything that’s happened in the last year, works his way backwards.

He thinks of Stiles’ friend Heather going missing a few days ago and feels a rush in his ears. Surely Stiles didn’t have anything to do with it. Surely?

There was that whole mess with Gerard Argent. Came to town for his daughter’s funeral, Kate.

Matt Daehler. Went on a revenge spree for a drowning incident when he was nine.

All three dead, with too many murders in between. John wonders if Stiles is responsible for even half of them. He killed a man right in front of John without flinching. Like he’d done it before.  

He tries to remember every time he saw Stiles at a crime scene, but it’s like they’re all blurred, bits and pieces missing. How long has he been like this, and never noticed? What has Stiles been doing to him? He considers making a timeline on his cork board, but it isn’t safe from Stiles. None of John’s spaces are.

He finds Melissa on her dayside shift on a Wednesday.

“Can you do a blood test?”

“Sure,” she says, looking over his shoulder. “Where’s the lucky inmate?”

“No, I mean, can you do a blood test on me?”

Everything comes out normal.

“Well, except for the Ambien.”

John stares at Melissa.

“Sleeping pills,” she says, like it’s obvious.

He clears his throat and nods his head. He doesn’t take sleeping pills.

“Thanks, Melissa.”

x

Sometimes, at the end of John’s dreams, instead of trying to kill him, Stiles kisses him.

x

A whole lot more makes sense after discovering werewolves.

Sitting in some cold and very literal root cellar, a knife wound festering in his shoulder, and listening to Melissa describe everything that’s been going on right under his nose, John has to wonder how the hell he could have missed something this big, and how the hell he was supposed to guess _werewolves_.

So more starts making sense.

But not everything.

He assumes now that everything is out in the open, now that he knows what Stiles typically gets up too, his son will stop being so cagey. He doesn’t have to constantly lie to protect his friends, he doesn’t have to sneak out late for emergencies. John gives Stiles the room to face challenges with his… pack, as per Deaton’s recommendations, and he doesn’t hassle Stiles half as much on coming home late or staying out on school nights. All in all, John thinks he’s being pretty damn accommodating about the whole supernatural thing.

His son kills people to protect himself and his friends. They haven’t talked about it, but John likes to think Stiles knows John supports him. Believes that every kill was for a good reason.

So why is Stiles still creeping around the house like he’s got something nasty to hide?

x

He walks out of his office ready to head home, in want of a well deserved, greasy snack when Tara stops him.

“I saw your boy the other day,” she says with a half-cocked smile. But it falls. “He was at the hardware store with an older man.”

“An older man?” John asks.

“Yeah, I didn’t get a good look at them, but my impression was someone who had no business being with him. Wore a leather jacket. Goatee.”

Derek Hale, he thinks instantly, tensing up a bit. He can guess there’s some new supernatural trouble brewing if they’re running around town together. John thought Derek had left town right after he, Melissa, and Chris were rescued, but maybe not.

He means to ask Stiles about it later, but honestly he forgets.

John doesn’t think of Derek Hale once, not for another week at least, when he comes home late to find Stiles asleep on the couch. His shirt is stuck somewhere on his limbs, and at first, John thinks it’s the shadow of the TV playing across Stiles’ neck and shoulder, smudged in dark spots. But as he gets closer, John sees teeth marks, pinkness of burst blood under fair skin. Stiles has always bruised easily.

He flicks the table lamp on, and Stiles stirs at the bright light.

“What is this?” he asks, tugging Stiles’ shirt to the side. There are blue and yellow bruises branded on his fair skin, and they are all in the shape of bite marks.

“Dad?” his son asks, groggy and small.

“Who did this to you?” he demands as Stiles squirms, trying to take stock of what’s happening. John sees the moment Stiles fills in the gaps.

“No one did anything to me. Let go.”

He grabs Stiles by the wrist, and pulls his baggy sleeve off his shoulder. John stops, heart in his throat.

His entire arm is ringed with dark bruises.

“ _Stiles_ ,” he gasps.

He caresses his skin gently, looks where his wrist is mottled the darkest.

“Did someone kidnap you again? _Torture_ you? Baby, what _happened?_ ”

“What? No, Dad, it wasn’t like that.”

Stiles jerks his shirt back up, rubs his arm and winces.

“Then what is going on?” John shouts. He doesn’t mean to lose control, to tower over Stiles and yell.

Stiles looks away, breathing hard.

“Take your shirt off,” John says quietly.

“That’s not—that’s not necessary, okay?”

“I’ll decide what’s necessary! Your shirt, Stiles. Now.”

Stiles gulps, but does as he’s told. The shirt comes off.

John closes his eyes. Opens them.

“Your pants, too.”

“Dad—”

“Stiles.”

There are more bruises, yes. But along his son’s back and hips, there are claw marks, swollen and red. There’s a circle of scabs on his inner thigh, a perfect bite mark.

“Who. Who _did_ this?”

Stiles refuses to answer.

John tries to breathe, just, just _evenly_.

“Was it Derek Hale?” he finally asks. I’ll kill him, he thinks at the same time.

He might actually mean it.

“Derek? No! God, Dad, why would you even think that?” Stiles shouts. He gets up from the couch then, snatching his clothes and curling over his own blue-yellowish-ness.

“Because you’re sneaking around! Because people have been seeing you with an older man! I’m not an idiot, Stiles!”

His son shrinks away, and John forces himself to dial it back.

“Stiles, kiddo,” he says softly, taking him by the shoulders and rubbing. “You can tell me anything. If someone is hurting you, if they’re threatening you to keep quiet—”

“You don’t live under a rock, I know you know what BDSM is.”

“This isn’t BDSM, it’s abuse!”

“So we got carried away! It was an accident.”

Even Stiles doesn’t believe it. John sees the lie slip from his mouth as though it had a color. They’ve hit a wall, the one John thought had crumbled. He’s been naive.

John sends Stiles to bed. He doesn’t know what to do.

x

He spends the next few days pulling up to the old, burnt-out Hale house. He remembers it from before, its grandeur. He’d met with Talia Hale at least once a month to stay updated on Park Rangers and wildlife activity. He remembers Derek Hale then, young and awkward. Stiles’ age. It burns him just to think Derek might be the one Stiles is hiding.

It’s obvious no one has been squatting here, but he has no other way of running into Derek Hale.

He’s idling in the grown-over driveway on the fifth afternoon when someone knocks on his cruiser’s window.

“Stilinski. Mind telling me what you’re doing coming here every day?” Derek asks when he rolls it down.

John tries not to react with violence. He gets out of the car, grimly determined to see this to the end.

“Hale. I have a few questions.”

“You know I have a cell phone. And an actual apartment.”

John shrugs. Just as well.

“What exactly is your relationship with my son?”

Derek blinks.

“Stiles?”

“Do you see any other Stilinski children running around?”

“I don’t have a relationship with Stiles. We’ve been in the same room approximately four times. Most of our encounters deal with dying or nearly dying.”

“How old are you, Derek? Twenty-four or so?”

“Twenty-six.”

Ten years difference, exactly.

John sees a flash of pale, bruised flesh, and everything briefly goes red.

He grabs Derek by the collar and slams him into the side of the car.

“Have you. _Ever_. Touched my son, Derek?”

Derek throws him off and straightens his ruffled jacket, that damn leather one. He has the gall to look offended.

“What are you asking? Have I had sex with him?”

John inclines his head. Derek scoffs.

“No! I have never and will never touch your snot-nosed kid. I’m surrounded enough as it is by obnoxious teenagers. Why the hell would I want to sleep with one?”

And John… John believes him. He nods, wiping a hand down his face and pacing in the gravel.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, son. I hear you.”

Derek raises a hand like he might try to comfort John, but thinks better of it.

“Has someone hurt him?”

John sighs. Thinks of Stiles with his thin neck, all marked up.

“I don’t know.”

He drives away from the Hale house that day, Derek watching him in the rearview mirror. He thinks, feeling worse than ever, if it isn’t Derek doing who knows what to his kid, who could it be?

x

It’s a Wednesday, and it hits him like a sledge hammer.

He shows up at Derek’s loft for the first time, to deal with the disappearance of Jennifer Blake. Or Julia Baccari, rather. Everyone is pretty certain she’s dead since the storm has died down, but no one wants to take that chance. The whole lot of them are there, all of Stiles’ friends, along with Chris Argent and Derek, of course. They’re already arguing, filling up the barren apartment with their voices; but Stiles...

Stiles is in the kitchen, sitting at a smaller table that’s covered in maps, notes, files and pictures. Half of it looks like it’s been stolen directly from the sheriff’s department. He doesn’t seem worried about the issue that has Scott yelling and Derek growling, It looks like he’s translating something in Japanese.

But there’s this man in kitchen too, leaning over Stiles, breathing on his neck, hands squeezing his shoulders. It’s Peter Hale. John’s run into him before, once. When he first ran into him at the hospital, first discovered him after his resurrection stunt. Melissa had mentioned him a few times in passing when she explained the whole story, and lots of it goes back to Peter Hale biting Scott.

He never thought—never _considered_.

They don’t notice him watching.

Peter whispers something to Stiles, laughing, and Stiles swats at him with a yellow folder without looking away from the table. Reads the word _asshole_ from his lips.

Peter Hale is not twenty-six. Peter Hale is at least forty, a grown man with grey in his hair, and he’s got his hands sliding up Stiles’ neck like he has any right, like—

Peter kisses Stiles’ ear, and it’s all he can take. John draws his gun, and shoots him right then in the shoulder.

Peter roars at him. Everyone explodes with their screams and reactions, but John only has eyes for his target, gun locked on Peter and waiting.

“Dad, what the hell?” Stiles shouts hysterically. His chair falls as he stumbles to his feet, eyes wide.

“He—he—”

He is beyond words.

There’s someone grabbing at his shoulder, but John shakes them off, arm swinging. Peter has calmed down, mouth twisted into a grin. He holds his wounded shoulder, blood oozing between his fingers. John hopes it burns.

“Dad!” Stiles shouts again, runs up to him, pulls at his arms trying to get him to lower the pistol. John hauls him by his shirt collar until he’s between his son and Peter.

“You will never touch my son again!” he finally manages to scream.

“Dad, oh my god!”

Stiles is horrified. He looks around at everyone staring and rubs his face in both hands.

Peter laughs.

“Stiles told me you saw,” he says. “You must be livid. Catching a man putting his hands on your precious boy. Mad that it’s been happening for months right under your nose. Mad that that man is me. But mostly mad that it wasn’t you.”

All of the air in the room disappears. John can’t stop panting, hands trembling. He can barely aim.

“Tell me. What did you do when you saw that first little hickey, hmm?” Peter sing-songs. “Did you push him down?”

“Stop,” John rasps.

“Did you make him take his clothes off?”

“Stop!”

His heart is pounding. He glances over, and Stiles is hiding his face in his hands, rocking in place. The whole loft is silent.

“He calls me Daddy, you know,” Peter whispers in the quiet with relish.

“Peter, oh my god, just shut the fuck up!” Stiles shouts, but the last half of his plea is drowned out by the sound of John emptying his clip into Peter’s chest.

He buckles his pistol back into his holster and turns to the rest of the room.

Everyone stares back, wide-eyed and gaping.

“Did _anyone_ know about this?” he hisses, making eye contact with every single person in the room.

They all indicate no.

John breathes through his nose, trying to calm down. He’s just shot a man. He’s just shot a man fifteen times. He’s not sure it will kill Peter, but probably—probably not. Unfortunately.

“Right. We’re leaving.”

He drags Stiles out by the arm.

“Give me your phone,” he says once they’re in the cruiser.

“Dad—”

“Phone! Now.”

Stiles passes it over miserably. He’s mopping at his face, crying.

The phone is buzzing and dinging wildly, probably all of his little friends reacting. John turns it off with feeling.

“You will never see him again.”

“Dad,” Stiles simpers. “You, you might have killed him.”

“Good.”

“He didn’t—he didn’t force me. I went to him. The first time.”

“He should have said no.”

John starts the car and pulls away from the loft.

“It was _my_ idea!”

“I’m sure he did a great job of making you think that! If he doesn’t die, you’re coming with me to the station and we’re reporting it.”

“No.”

“This isn’t a debate, Stiles.”

Stiles goes quiet for a bit.

“If you make me do that, I’ll. I’ll show them the bruises. I’ll tell everyone it was you.”

John damn near swerves off the road. He pulls into their driveway, happy to have made it alive. Stiles is staring at him, looking shocked but determined at what he’s said.

John takes both of Stiles’ hands in his own imploringly.

“What would you have me do?” he asks. “Stiles, you’re, you’re my baby. He touched you. Hurt you. He—”

Raped you.

Stiles doesn’t have an answer for him.

They walk inside, and it’s like a completely different house somehow.

“You’re grounded. Indefinitely. If I have to lock you in the storage closet to keep you from that… That murderer!”

Jesus, John would actually feel better if it had been Derek fucking Hale. Not much better, mind. But maybe a little.

“I’m a murderer,” Stiles says quietly.

John freezes.

“You’re a child!” he shouts. “My child! My responsibility. This is my doing. I’ve been absent. I’ve used my job as an excuse.”

“Dad, no. Come one, it’s not your fault.”

“I should have noticed! Jesus, up until last week, I thought you were a virgin! I should have protected you.”

Stiles’ face is red in shame.

“Maybe we should just sit down,” Stiles says. “Have a cup of coffee.”

“I’m not drinking any of your damn coffee!” John shouts. Stiles shrinks in on himself, caught out.

“You won’t talk to him. You sure as hell won’t see him. And if I catch him sniffing around here, by god, I will kill him for fucking sure this time.”

“Anything you’re trying to protect me from has already happened, Dad. I’ve already done it.”

That right there is the hardest pill to swallow, and Stiles has hit it dead on, like he knows exactly what it does to him. John has to take a moment to compose himself. He plows on.

“Anyone who wants to talk to you will do it through me for now. I still don’t believe no one knew anything. That many super senses and no one had any idea? I had it figured out in about two seconds!”

“What if there’s an emergency? What if they need me for something?”

“Then they’d better call the station and ask for me.”

x

Later, he looks through Stiles’ phone. The bulk of his inbox is unsurprisingly correspondence with Scott. He finds the conversation he’s looking for under the name _Wolf of Wall Street_.

There’s only one exchange from a few days ago, the rest clearly deleted.

_What do you call a hairy beast with clothes on?_ Stiles says.

_A wear-wolf?_ Peter replies. _Really, Stiles._

_No, a disappointment._ Stiles punctuates this with a winking emoji.

_I’d hate to disappoint. You have ten minutes to get here._

John puts the phone down, nauseated.

x

He catches Peter Hale’s leering grin sneaking out of his son’s window three nights later.

John is so livid, he can hardly see straight, half a mind to make chase. Instead, on account of only being in his underwear and half-asleep, he grabs his fidgeting son by the scruff and shakes him.

Thank god, Stiles still has all of his clothes on. He doesn’t know what would have happened if he’d found the two of them in a compromised and naked situation.

“Grab your pillow.”

It’s for his safety, John tells himself.

“You’re sleeping in my room tonight.”

It’s to protect him. It’s not like—

“I’ll put a goddamn padlock on your window tomorrow.”

“He can just break it,” Stiles says automatically, seemingly without meaning to.

John closes his eyes and breathes very deeply for a moment. He points to Stiles’ pillow meaningfully.

His son shuffles to it and lets himself get dragged to the master suite. It’s an odd combination of cluttered and vacant, like John is still waiting for someone to come fill the empty spaces. Some days, Claudia feels so close, like she could come walking out of their deep closet, complaining about moth-eaten wool.

John settles back in bed, his spot still warm from before he’d leapt up upon hearing voices in Stiles’ room.

“ _Dad_ ,” Stiles whines. “Do I really have to?”

John looks at him, expressionless, and Stiles huffs as he crawls under the covers. His warmth seeps toward John, and he wants to pull it closer.

For his protection, John tells himself firmly.

Stiles clutches his pillow. Eyes big and pouty.

“That isn’t going to work, so you can go ahead and put ‘em away.”

“Even if I cry?”

“I’d be impressed if you can conjure even a single tear.”

Stiles makes a _tch_ noise and turns his back to him.

“So, what did he want?” John asks against his better judgement. Stiles twists to look back over his shoulder.

“He showed up mostly out of spite. He likes to cause trouble. Listen, Dad, whatever you think about my relationship with Peter, it isn’t like. We’re not. It’s sex, okay? Just sex.”

John props himself up on an elbow, unable to listen to this lying down.

“No, not okay! Jesus, kid.”

“You’re telling me this is worse than me being in _actual_ love with Peter Hale.”

“Why can’t you have sex with another sixteen year old, huh? Why isn’t that an option? Can you tell me that?”

Stiles shrugs, looking away.

“How did this even start?” he demands.

His son pulls the covers up to his chin, sinking low on the mattress.

“He was there that night after Matt. He helped me—”

Stiles freezes when he realizes he’s said something John isn’t supposed to know about. Peter, what? Helped him hide the body? Christ.

“Um, he helped me calm down.”

With his dick? John doesn’t say.

“Why didn’t you come to me?” he asks instead.

Stiles grimaces.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Can’t we go to sleep?”

John reaches out under the comforter until he can rub Stiles’ side from shoulder to hip.

“Okay, I’m sorry, baby.”

He hears a nearly inaudible sniffle and totally crumbles. He scoots closer so he can pull Stiles against himself and wrap his arms under and around him.

“Stiles, it’s. It’s okay to want things. To need certain things. You just gotta be smart about where you go to get it.”

His son doesn’t reply, just grabs hold of John’s hands and squeezes them tight.

x

It’s isn’t just sex.

It can’t be, with the tenacity with which Peter Hale trails after Stiles. Despite threats of death. Despite being exiled from the pack. Despite any and all reason! John would shoot him again, only he has to report every discharged bullet with the department. The amount of fuckery it had taken to hide the entire clip John shot at Peter is almost not worth repeating.

In any case, every time his son goes out in public, that fucking child molester just happens to be nearby.

He and Stiles have to go to the store. Oh, and there’s Peter in the same aisle, reading over a bag of organic quinoa.

He goes to the lacrosse games, cheering Stiles on even if he doesn’t get to play. And there’s Peter, lurking by the bleachers, showing up for ‘pack solidarity.’

They’re at the diner having a late dinner, and who comes strolling through the doors not five minutes later?

“He’s just trying to get a rise out of you,” Stiles murmurs, not looking up at where Peter has settled himself in the booth behind him.

John seethes.

They eat in uncomfortable silence while Peter drinks nothing but a single cup of coffee for the next forty-five minutes. John doesn’t get these times with Stiles often, and he can hardly stomach Peter Hale ruining it. Stiles pushes his key lime pie around on his plate, and John watches him glance over his shoulder every few minutes. They only speak when their server stops by to ask how everything is.

“I’ll um, meet you at home okay?” Stiles says, standing up from the booth after John’s paid. It’s the first thing they’ve said to each other since Peter sat down.

“Sure. I’ll walk you to the jeep.”

“Dad, come on—”

“Stiles. I’ll walk you,” he says again through clenched teeth, and he doesn’t miss the way Peter chuckles softly at them.

They walk past Peter’s booth, and John nearly loses it when he sees Stiles hesitate, like he might try to say something or reach out. Peter, for his part, smirks at his coffee and stirs in a packet of sugar without once glancing their way.

“Are you going to watch me drive away?” Stiles demands once they’ve gotten outside. John just leans back on his heels and crosses his arms.

“Are you going to follow me home too?” he shouts.

“Considering I live there, and I’d like to go to bed now, yes.”

His son stomps to the jeep, grumbling under his breath. John doesn’t mind; he can bear it. Stiles can be as frustrated, angry, impatient as he wants. John can stand there and take it all. And true to his word, John watches Stiles pull out of the parking space and turn onto the road before going to his own car.

He imagines a scenario where he goes back into the diner. Beats the audacity out of Peter, until his knuckles go cold with the wet of blood. Until the man begs, until his fist aches. He imagines killing him.

Peter is still sipping leisurely on his coffee when John drives away.

x

John wakes up following a night shift. It’s late afternoon, his room striped with long shadows and warm sunlight, but images of a terrifying and arousing dream linger. It makes his eyelids sticky, reluctant to open, reluctant to close again. He rolls over, arms reaching out before he can stop the instinct and the subsequent disappointment. No one is there.

His alarm clock reads a few minutes after four, and John supposes he should get up, check in on Stiles, and secure some fashion of dinner. He sits up with a groan, slides on some joggers and runs a sleep-warm palm over his hair.

“Stiles?” he calls in the hallway.

His son’s door is open, but the room is empty when John peeks inside. He looks out the window, the driveway exactly one blue jeep short of what’s meant to be there. John glances at his watch. Four-twenty. Stiles knows he’s supposed to be home by four. It’s a new rule, but one strictly enforced. Stiles hasn’t tried to break it yet, probably trying to rack up good-will currency. He’s spending it quickly now.

John tries not to worry; he’d text if it were a supernatural crisis. Probably.

He settles in front of the TV with a pack of his secret oreos and tries to relax. It’s not that late; maybe there’s heavy traffic. An accident. Maybe Stiles had to talk to one of his teachers.

Four-forty rolls around. Four-fifty.

John calls Stiles’ cell, returned out of necessity, and it rings and rings to voicemail.

_Where are you?_ he sends.

_Stiles!_

_Get home now._

_Answer me._

He goes through every parental imperative in his arsenal, but Stiles doesn’t respond. He’s still sitting in front of the TV when Stiles comes crashing in, ten after five.

“Dad!” he gasps, out of breath. He drops his backpack in the hall. John wonders if he’ll try for casual, pretend he doesn’t know he’s late, but Stiles goes right to the point. “I didn’t see Peter, I swear. It’s… Nothing happened. I had detention with Harris.”

“Harris,” John says slowly, rubbing his chin. “Your chemistry teacher.”

Stiles nods rapidly, making his way toward his room like a skittish animal.

“Your chemistry teacher who was ritually sacrificed last month.”

Stiles freezes, shoulders going up to his ears. “Oh.”

Indeed. John nods, makes his way to his feet, hands on his hips.

“Listen, Dad, Daddy, I still didn’t see Peter. I promise!”

And John? John wishes he could take Stiles’ word for it, he really does. He wishes he could look at Stiles’ and know without a doubt that it’s true.

But he doesn’t.

“Take off your shirt, Stiles.”

“Dad—” Stiles starts, voice cracking. He chokes up, eyes bright. John gives him a look, _the_ look. He thinks it must be a genetic hack, that parents can shut their children down without a word.

Stiles clenches his jaw and unbuttons his flannel. He slides his arms out of it and lets it drop to the floor without a glance, probably hoping it will annoy John. He looks up then, playing with the hem of his undershirt, and John makes a motion with his hands, _carry on_. Stiles pulls his shirt off.

John circles him slowly, inspecting every bit of skin, Stiles’ neck craning to watch him warily.

There’s the sight of a familiar smattering of bruises, older and yellower now than before. He can’t see any new ones. Goosebumps raise on his son’s neck and shoulders.

“Your pants too.”

It comes out of John’s mouth like he isn’t controlling it.

“ _Dad_.”

“Your pants, Stiles,” he repeats, wondering how it got here; how he let it get here.

John hears the zipper going down, and Stiles lets his baggy jeans fall, hands covering his face.

John thinks, _thank god_ , because he can’t see any trace of Peter Hale on Stiles’ skin. After, he thinks, my beautiful boy, unbidden. It’s harmless; of course John thinks his child is perfect. How could he not? Stiles is everything John has in the world, everything that matters, and he’s so, so pretty.

But he sees a bit of redness peeking around the bottom of his boxers and at his purple hip bones.

“It’s a rash,” Stiles stutters. “I ate hot wings at lunch and went to piss and now it’s all irritated. Dad, come on, this is—”

“I know what beard burn looks like, son.”

John rubs his hand over his own hair, tired and scared.

“Can I put my pants back on?”

“No,” he snaps quickly, too quickly. “Go… go sit in the bathroom.”

John goes to his room after he watches Stiles trip over his jeans to get to the bathroom. He grabs some lotion and antibiotic ointment.

His son is twisting impatiently on the toilet, hunching over his pale, bare knees. He methodically tears of a single sheet of toilet paper over and over, watching it flutter to his feet.

“All right, quit that,” he says, kneeling in front of Stiles. He grabs Stiles’ ankles and gently pulls his legs apart until he has access to his inner thighs. Stiles yelps, trying to right himself, but John holds him firm.

“Be still.”

It’s to take care of him, John coaches himself.

He slathers his palms with lotion, warms the soothing cream with his hands, and touches them to his son’s legs. He starts at the knees and slowly slides up his inner thighs until he can get to the harsh redness that stains Stiles’ skin.

Stiles gasps, hisses and groans all in one.

“It’s sensitive,” he whines.

John keeps going even as Stiles’ boxers bunch up on his knuckles, chasing the rash, trying to cool it.

“Daddy,” Stiles pants, John’s hands buried in the crease of each trembling thigh.

This is getting out of control, John thinks. Way, _way_ out of control.

His thumbs trace where he can feel the hint of wiry hair on Stiles’ pelvis.

“It isn’t just about getting hurt,” he says, voice gruff. “Your partner is supposed to take care of you afterwards.”

He drags his hands back down Stiles’ legs, the skin left slick and shiny. Stiles hasn’t grown a lot of leg hair, the fine, small fuzz flattened.

“ _You_ take care of me,” Stiles whispers, biting on his lips.

John tries his best to ignore that.

“Anywhere else?” he asks, voice coming out gruff. He looks up at Stiles, and his son is breathing open-mouthed, face and chest blotchy red, eyelids half-hung. John is very aware of how warm he feels.

“No,” Stiles croaks, shifts his hips side to side.

x

He doesn’t mean for it to happen.

John can’t watch Stiles every day, all day. He drops him off at school and picks him up every day. But during that eight hours, and the weekends while he’s at work. John can’t account for Stiles’ every move. He puts a deputy on school grounds, says it’s in response to the possible serial killer running around strangling kids. He tells Derek to keep an eye on his uncle or get pulled over every time he gets in his car.

He restricts his son in every way he can, but Stiles has always been slippery on his own.

Peter and Stiles together are downright perilous. A pattern starts.

He comes home to find Stiles with new bumps and bruises, and John—well, John takes care of them.

“He bit me,” Stiles murmurs, shirt raised to his armpits, his left nipple swollen and red with teeth marks.

John can’t just leave him like that.

“Come here, baby.”

It’s his _job_ to take care of Stiles.

He drags a warm, wet rag over the abused skin, rubs the ointment gently with his thumb, and Stiles twitches and pants all the while, mouth hanging open. He used to scold Stiles for always letting his mouth gape.

He doesn’t stop him now.

x

“He spanked me,” Stiles tells him next, looking at John over his shoulder, thumbs pulling on the elastic of his boxer briefs.

He suspects Stiles is playing up how much it hurts, his eyes wide and teary, but it still punches John low in the gut. He still can’t help getting the aloe. He thinks, I could give him the aloe and leave. Stiles is capable of putting on some lotion by himself.

But John doesn’t. He has Stiles lay belly-down on the couch, his boxers pulled just beneath his cherry-red ass, and he becomes the very man he hates by putting his hands on Stiles. It’s approximately a hundred miles from fatherly the way he presses his palms into the fleshy swell of Stiles’ tender asscheek.

He watches the abraded flesh disappear under his hands and come away oily and sticky with aloe. There’s only the drone of the AC and Stiles’ uneven, hitching breaths, the muffled sound of a car passing down the street. He pretends he doesn’t notice the way Stiles’ hips twitch into the couch cushions, the way his mouth is always gaping, pressed into the fabric and marking it with his drool.

John focuses on the task.

“He should hold back some,” John chastises. “You’re human.”

Stiles huffs and turns his head into the back of the couch, hiding his face.

John’s thumbs dip into the crease of Stiles’ ass of their own accord, nearly touch his perineum and hole, and Stiles yelps.

John pulls back, clearing his throat.

“Dad...” Stiles sighs.

“I think that’s good, son.”

Stiles looks over his shoulder at him, eyes hazy.

“I might need more tomorrow.”

x

“He knotted me,” Stiles sobs, curled up on the bathroom floor. “It hurts, god, Dad, it _hurts_.”

John hears what Stiles is saying, thinks bondage, and starts looking him over for rope burns.

“He said only alphas can knot, but he _lied_ ,” Stiles shouts, furious and wailing. He must be in substantial pain because he gingerly strips off his sweats with John standing over him, uncaring and very stiff.

“I don’t think I’m getting it,” he says, because he sees the inside of the sweatpants smeared dark and red, and his heart races.

“Peter’s dick, Dad!” Stiles snaps. “Peter’s dick knotted my ass like a fucking dog, and it fucking hurts!”

His son starts to cry in earnest now, overwhelmed and in pain. John is frozen for a second, watches him clutch at his red ass, face pulled in a pale grimace. He understands knotting in a vague way, has heard of it from watching Animal Planet or maybe breeding clips for police dogs, but has never once thought about it, and definitely never predicted it would affect him in any way.

John moves on autopilot. He runs a hot bath, what Stiles has obviously intended to do once he peels himself up from the floor. He pulls Stiles gently into his arms and slowly lowers him into the water. Stiles sighs and whimpers into the heat in equal measure. John leaves him to soak for a moment, and returns with a glass of water and a muscle relaxer and advil.

“Take this now,” he says. “I’m going to have to look at the damage when you’re finished in here.”

Stiles makes a face, and John tries very hard not to notice how Stiles is tilted on his side, hands between his legs, fingers prodding where he’s tender.

“I’m guessing you’ll refuse to go to the emergency room.”

“So I can tell Melissa I fucked a dog? Great idea.”

“Have it your way,” John snaps. He doesn’t mean to, and he feels terrible when Stiles recoils, a perfect picture of misery. He sighs. “Stay put. I’m going to the store for some stuff. For your… I’ll be right back.”

Stiles is pruned and considerably less comfortable when John gets back to the house not ten minutes later. It seems the pain has drained his anger, and he lets John pull him around with minimal complaint. They hobble together to John’s room where he helps Stiles lay down. He covers his back with a throw blanket, pets his sopping hair.

“Just try to be still, kid,” he says softly, and Stiles nods, eyes closed.

John grabs his pharmacy bag and takes out the ointment.

“Is that hemorrhoid cream?” Stiles nearly shrieks, and John pins him in place before he can hurt himself.

“Do you want me to make sure you’re okay?” John asks. “Or do you want to go to the hospital?”

Stiles settles down again.

John looks at him then, for the first time. How he’s naked, rubbing himself on John’s bed, belly-down. How vulnerable his bare legs look, tensed under the sharp pain in his lower back. John puts his knee between those spread thighs, close enough that the darkness between Stiles’ legs is becoming more visible. There are moles scattered along his backside in the exact places they were when he first welcomed him into the world.

The bite mark on his inner thigh is a scab now, light and fading. It soothes him to see it disappearing.

John eases himself closer, rubs his broad hands up Stiles’ legs. He spreads them further as he goes, and Stiles follows the motion easily, bottom lip sucked between his teeth. John can see his jaw work as he gnaws. He eases his knees under Stiles thighs and hips until he can comfortably bear his weight and raise his ass, and there.

John can suddenly see everything.

This is for Stiles, he tells himself.

Stiles’ hole is a dark red, swollen and visibly used. It clenches everytime John’s thumbs stroke over Stiles’ cheeks, spreading them wider. The soft skin around his pink furl is raw, chafed.

“Is it bad?” Stiles asks weakly.

John hums.

“It’s a little irritated. I should...”

He trails off, unable to continue, so he dabs his fingers with numbing ointment and rubs over Stiles’ hole. It’s hot and velvety soft, and it seems to mouth against his fingers like it’s asking for something to be put inside. Stiles gasps, breathing loud. John rubs and rubs, cataloging every response, every twitch. He can see his son’s sack hanging under his fluttering hole, drawing up and flexing.

“You should check inside,” Stiles rasps.

John pauses, and Stiles whines.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “In case you’re, you know, in case there’s a tear. How does it feel now?”

His fingers are still stroking over puckered flesh, firm-soft, firm-soft.

“It’s good,” Stiles moans, and John’s stomach swoops. “I mean, it feels better. The cream helps.”

He presses his oiled finger in with barely a thought, and it sinks inside burning heat without resistance. Stiles’ back arches, and he shouts something muffled and desperate into John’s pillow.

“Does it hurt?” John rasps, throat dry. He twists his finger around, feeling out the silky walls of Stiles’ little, bruised-up hole, and he can’t pretend anymore, he really can’t. He prods around into the fleshy space Stiles has presented to him, and doesn’t stop until he feels the small firmness of his prostate.

“Sore!” Stiles yelps, but his hips press back into John’s hands. “God!”

“You’re all red, baby.”

John can see Stiles’ dark cock hanging heavy between his split legs, right over John’s crotch. He’s still in his uniform, the khakis stiff and constricting. Christ, he’s still got his radio on his belt, his badge on his chest.

Just this once, John pleads. Just this one thing.

He presses a second finger alongside the first, and Stiles’ hole slurps it up with ease. His son tenses, whines.

“Stings.”

“Tell me to stop,” John whispers, reluctantly. “If… if it gets to be too much.”

John fucks him, _fucks_ Stiles with his fingers spreading his abused hole on his knuckles and enjoying every whimper, every shudder. The cream creates a gooey, noisy mess that slides down Stiles’ crack and balls in large drops, eventually falling to John’s own lap. He adds a third finger, and Stiles’ cries grow sharp, urgent. He says _it hurts_ and _don’t stop_ in the same breath.

John rubs his fingers back and forth on Stiles’ prostate, gentle and relentless, and Stiles’ hips squirm in jerking thrusts, cock leaking under his undulating belly.

“Daddy, I need to come,” Stiles begs. “Please, _please_ let me come, fuck!”

“Just let go, let me take care of you,” John says.

He expects Stiles to reach for his red, straining cock, but Stiles just grabs his pillow and doubles down on John’s fingers, ass squeezing in pulses, his whole body tense and trembling. He comes without ever once touching himself, and John watches in amazement as he spurts all over his lap and the duvet. Stiles collapses, the tension draining out of him except for his clenching hole, still fluttering snug and warm on John’s fingers.

He pulls out, knuckles shiny. Stiles’ hole gapes open at him, and John surges forward to press a kiss to Stiles sweaty temple.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes, fumbling with the his belt and fly. “God, son, I’m so sorry.”

Stiles makes a questioning kind of warble but doesn’t move. He’s perfect, so perfect, like he was made for this, and John has to have him. He has to. He kisses Stiles’ hairline one more time, pressing his aching cock to his son’s soft hole. He pushes all the way in one go.

Stiles squeals.

It’s like sinking into a hot bath, a wet mouth, _fuck_ , it’s like a cunt. John steadies Stiles by the hips, holds him where he wants so he can jab his cock in deep, and it’s been so goddamned long.

“Love you,” he grunts, grinding his hips, watching his purpled length disappear in the plush cushion of Stiles’ ass. His hole is swollen, beyond used, and probably so, so sore, but John can’t stop. He presses his weight into Stiles, leaves kisses all over his shoulder blades and neck and just takes, takes everything he can. He’ll take care of Stiles after, he’ll run him another bath, swaddle him in blankets, make him something to eat, hold him all night.

But for now, he pins him down and _uses_.

John forces himself to slow, to better savor the smooth slide into tight heat, to listen to the high pitched whines forced out of Stiles every time he bottoms out.

“My boy,” John sighs, reaching for Stiles’ soft cock. “My perfect boy.”

Stiles moans at that, rolling into every thrust.

“Burns, Dad,” he cries.

“Just a bit longer,” John promises, but slows again, not willing to let it end just yet.

He spies the bite mark on Stiles’ thigh and feels a terrible urge to punish. He thrusts viciously, sharp and hard, and Stiles shouts with every one of them.

“Was it true? Did you call him Daddy?”

Stiles shakes his head, eyes clenched.

“Did you?” John demands, louder, slamming into Stiles with the full length of his cock, jolting him, rattling him.

“Yes,” Stiles hisses eventually.

“So how does it compare?” he asks, voice rough, feeling his cock lay heavy within Stiles’ hole. “Peter Hale versus the real thing?”

Stiles mumbles something too quiet to hear, so John yanks him up off the mattress and drops him down on his cock, locking his arms around Stiles’ shoudlers. “What did you say, baby?”

“I pretended it was you!”

John goes perfectly non-verbal digesting this.

He thrusts up into Stiles’ sloppy hole, and comes with those words ringing in his ears. He heaves for breath, face pressed into Stiles’ neck. The magnanimity of what he’s done hovers over him, but it’s like he’s in shock, numbed to the dawning realization of what he’s just finished; what he’s started. He pulls out, and Stiles whimpers, clutching at his own raw cheeks. John’s come spills out of his hole, and John watches it ooze for a second.

He turns Stiles over and looks at his red and crying face and expects to be pushed away, for Stiles to scream at him, accuse him of every terrible thing he’s just done. But Stiles clings to him with weak arms and buries his face into John’s neck.

“Please don’t hate me,” Stiles sobs. “I can’t help it, I love you, I love you so much.”

“Oh, baby,” John coos, feeling so fiercely affectionate and protective. He cups Stiles’ head and pets his hair. “I could never hate you.”

They clutch one another. John’s uniform is ruined and the bedroom blinds are open, and he’s done something irreversible. But it’s okay. It’s okay.

x

“You should be thanking me, honestly,” Peter tells him next they see each other. His eyes are glowing, and he’s bleeding all over the dirt under his hands.

It’s a Wednesday, and Stiles is at school taking an English test.

“I mean, if it weren’t for me, Stiles would have been arrested. Do you know how many bodies I’ve helped him dispose?” Peter continues, scuttling backwards along the leaves.

It’s just him and Peter, alone in the Preserve, and it’s by design.

“I taught him to accept his desire. I made him into something beautiful!” he shouts, truly desperate.

He was already beautiful, John doesn’t say. He has a pistol pointed at him, one enthusiastically provided by Chris Argent. He won’t waste any ammo this time.

“If it weren’t for me, you would have never been able to touch him. You should thank me!”

John fires.

“Thank you.”


End file.
